A TIMELINE
1898 John Luther Long publishes his short story “Madame Butterfly”
Performance practices are impacted by many factors—including pop culture, sociology, political and government acts, and much more. While it is not a comprehensive history, here we look at Madama Butterfly in relation to historical events, people, legislation, and stereotypes in mass media. Compiled by Alexis Hamilton, based on research and writings from The Oregon Encyclopedia, from The Oregon Historical Society and Portland State University; the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, the United States of America’s Office of the Historian, and Resolution Northwest’s “Timeline of Oregon’s Racial and Education History.”
18 0 0 s July 8, 1853
1873
1880
1882
1890s
U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry seeks to reestablish contact and trade between Japan and the Western world and utilize Japanese ports. He arrives in Tokyo harbor with a squadron of two steamers and two sailing ships and demands a treaty on behalf of the U.S. government.
Baron Matsumura Junzō graduates from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. He is one of the first Asian graduates of the academy and will go on to a career in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Miyo Iwakoshi and her family arrive in Oregon, the first documented Japanese immigrants to the state. Miyo Iwakoshi was married to Andrew McKinnon, a Scottish man whom she’d met when he was teaching animal husbandry in Japan. Together they establish a sawmill that McKinnon named Orient, in honor of his wife. Orient exists today as an unincorporated community near Gresham.
President Chester A. Arthur signs the Chinese Exclusion Act into law. It is repealed in 1943.
Relations between Japan and the United States are strained, as both countries advocate for immigration policies and their interests in East Asia and the Pacific. There is an increase in Japanese immigration to the United States, especially Hawaii and the West Coast; where Asian immigrants are often met with hostility and racism.
1914
1915
Madama Butterfly is performed for the first time in Japan. It is conducted by Takaori Shūichi, with his wife, Sumiko, in the title role.
Japanese soprano, Miura Tamaki makes her debut as Cio-Cio-San at the London Opera House. She becomes a celebrity in Japan and the first internationally acclaimed Japanese opera singer. She would meet Puccini in 1920.
30
M A DA M A B U T T E R F LY
Miura Tamaki
POR TL ANDOPER A .ORG
1915
1922 The Toll of the Sea opens—a film which follows the plot line of Madame Butterfly reset in China. The film stars Anna May Wong, a Chinese American actress whose career was severely curtailed by the practice of yellowface and stereotypes.
Mary Pickford stars as Cio-Cio-San in the first movie version of Madame Butterfly.
1920s
1922
1924
Members of the Ku Klux Klan (a white supremacist hate group) are elected to office in Oregon. Their legislative agenda includes passing laws that had previously been rejected—including the Oregon Alien Land Law, and the Oregon Business Restriction Law. First-generation Japanese Americans (known as Issei) are prohibited from owning land, and the local jurisdictions are empowered to practice discriminatory business licensing.
The Cable Act of 1922 allows American women who marry foreign nationals eligible for naturalization to retain their U.S. citizenship. That year, the Supreme Court of the United States rules in Ozawa v. United States that first-generation Japanese people are ineligible for citizenship and cannot apply for naturalization.
President Calvin Coolidge signs the Immigration Act of 1924; imposing immigration limitations based on a national origins quota.